Stroudsburg skate park closed

STROUDSBURG — The skateboard park near Stroudsburg High School will be closed until further notice after being targeted by the most recent incident of mischief.

A sign on the locked gate Wednesday read "closed due to vandalism." One of the park's skateboard ramps was discovered broken, Borough Public Works Director Brian Ace said.

Also, someone had brought the bicycle rack from its place by the nearby pool into the park and brought in their own ramps. Those ramps aren't covered under the borough's hold-harmless insurance agreement, which means the borough would be held liable if someone were to be injured while skating on those ramps, Ace said.

Ace recommended to the Borough Council on Tuesday that the park be closed until further notice while the Stroud Region Open Space and Recreation Commission determines what to recommend the borough do with the park. The commission partners with the borough and neighboring municipalities to oversee open space preservation and the maintenance and monitoring of parks, pools and other public recreational facilities in those municipalities.

Borough Council member Boyd Weiss voiced frustration over the fact that the council keeps having to discuss the same problem of vandalism at the park year after year.

"I'm just tired of it," Weiss said. "We've closed the park for this same reason before and reopened it only to have the same thing happen again."

Locking the park would do no good since vandals would just break the lock, Weiss said.

The idea of replacing the park with a picnic area was mentioned, but it remains to be seen what will happen. The borough was in contact over the summer with an Allentown-area skateboard park designer, who was considering building a park near the Third Street basketball courts, but nothing has been confirmed.

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